Archiving Solutions – What Is It All About?
Data management is extremely crucial, especially when handling sensitive information. Fortunately, there is an archiving solution that will make data management a breeze. Today, there are many forms of archiving solutions and each comes with pros and cons. However, for you to come up with the most ideal choice you have to know and understand archiving is in its deepest sense. What it is and how it can affect your organizational framework and day to day operations.
What is archiving?
Archiving pertains to the process of identifying, selecting, and moving data out of the current list and database and move it into a storage system. Such data has to be kept for some reasons such as for reference, regulatory compliance, and other undisclosed reasons. The thing is these data will be a source of analytic value as time passes by.
Is archiving the same as a backup?
While the two are quite similar they differ in a way that archiving is all about data storage while a backup is all about creating a copy of the data and put it to another storage system, which could be on-site or offsite. In case the original data are lost, there will be a readily available backup. With archiving, the entire data are moved, but not to trash but to another storage system. In case these data are needed, then they can easily be pulled out.
What is the purpose of archiving?
The primary goal of archiving is to protect dormant data from anything that would lose their use such as being lost or destroyed. These data are deemed important as they may, later on, be needed for compliance with regulations. In most companies, these data are a part of their retention policies. If you own a company or organization and still haven’t felt the need to have an archiving solution like MLtek, then the more you need to read this article up to the very end. Since the early 2000’s ‘MLtek‘ have been providing software solutions for some of the biggest challenges in IT.
Below is the significance of having a reliable and dependable archiving system:
- The best archiving solution can help improve how applications work. Through an organized system, companies will be able to reduce the size of their storage.
- Another important point of having a storage solution is that it can significantly reduce the storage cost by simply moving dormant or inactive data from the primary storage. If you run an organization, then you know how fancy it is to have primary storage. Secondary storage like an archiving system is more affordable and will help you save money in the long run.
- With data archiving, you will not need to spend a lot of time back upping data from the primary storage. It also saves you bandwidth, which will eventually help you save money.
- With fewer data, it would be easier to manage the applications and systems as a whole. Hence, one of the valid reasons why every company should consider data archiving.
- It enables people in the team, especially those in charge of data management to easily comply with the regulatory framework.
While there are plenty of advantages to having an archiving solution, still there are some challenges that may come along the way. These include:
- Difficulty in managing growing data volumes
Over time the volume of data increases which will make it quite challenging to manage. The growing data has to be moved to a secondary storage system, thus, leading to a complex archiving solution.
- Storage cost
If you are going to compare the price of primary storage to an archiving system, you will notice that archiving costs less. However, if there are many dates to archive, it will also lead to bigger costs. The rapid growth of data can make the expenses go out of hand.
- Evolving compliance requirements
Regulatory framework requirements change over time which makes archiving even more difficult to manage. Therefore, it is a must to have a tested and proven effective archiving solution.
Archiving to cloud
Another option for data archiving is cloud archiving. It is where you move the data to secondary storage but this time in the cloud. This option is more affordable and enables you to easily access the file whenever you need it. Although it does have some good points, it also has some not-so-good points such as less control on your end and more compliance management.
MLtek is one of the world’s leaders when it comes to data archiving needs. Amongst their products is ‘ArchiverFS‘, a unique take on a file archiving solution. It has established itself as a leader in data protection and enterprise data management solution. Through their tested and proven effective system, your organization will be able to perform well as you don’t need to spend so much time in data management.
Some of the advantages MLtek brings are the following:
- It helps you properly archive inactive content which eventually leads to an improved server and application performance.
- It plays an important role in reducing storage costs. The inactive data are moved to a less costly storage system, thus, optimizing the storage tiers. It also equates to improved overall performance.
- It makes data management tasks easy by simplifying the entire system and moves the data to a single platform for archiving.
- It integrates data archiving seamlessly. When the time comes to pull out the data, you can easily do so without any problems or hassles.
- The opportunity to minimize the cost of research and to have readily available tools to allow users to easily access and manage archived data.
- Through this archiving solution, you will be able to minimize the need for backup and archiving windows. It leads to a significant reduction in the amount and cost of bandwidth needed to transfer data.
- It seamlessly enforces data archiving along with retention policies. Hence, the entire process is made simple so you can focus more on other aspects of the business.